SSSD - Stay with Julie

Alison looks apologetic.

“We have a lot to do,” she says. “Can I help you after we finish? Losing continuity here would be risky. I don’t want to think about if Dr. Gretland would have to start over.”

Golda’s good. She doesn’t look startled, but she is. It doesn’t show.

She nods slowly.

“Of course,” she says, and withdraws.

Alison sees Julie looking at her, face unreadable.

“Thank you,” she says.

“This is tedious stuff. Let’s get it done.” Alison smiles reassuringly.

“Call me Julie.” The name seems a lot cuter spoken by a Norwegian.

“I will,” Alison says warmly.

They get back to work. Alison suspects that Golda wanted to feel her out. The picture forming in her mind is one of relative isolation. Golda doesn’t seem to have a lot of friends here, but her conduct in the sauna laid everything bare: she wants some human touch. It’s not clear at this point if she wants intimacy or just sex, but she is bursting with sexual frustration.

But Norwegian scientists are not CCL girls. Golda probably considers it inappropriate or unprofessional to flirt with her colleagues and subordinates. An American intern, meanwhile, maybe seems to her like a separate category of person. Not that it’s so appropriate to go after much younger women, but Alison can imagine different ways that Golda might be thinking.

At any rate, it feels as though the ball has been passed. If Alison wants to make something happen there, she’ll have to initiate it now.

Meanwhile, there’s still plenty to do. Julie soon suggests a break, and they retire to the rec room, where soft jazz plays. They sit at a little table near the pool table on high chairs with tall mugs of black coffee, munching crunchy wafers covered in chocolate.

As Alison gazes across the tiny table, she can imagine that this is a café in Oslo instead of a slightly grimy room in Antarctica. She can imagine Julie in a dress with her hair down.

But Julie isn’t imagining those things. She seems distant and distracted, even if all she does is stare into space. Julie is not aching with loneliness; whatever’s on her mind is something else.

“You know what happened to those missing samples,” Alison says.

That gets Julie’s attention.

“Yes,” she says. “Linda took them.”

“For her work? In that other locked lab?”

Julie nods.

“Why not just sign them out?” Alison asks.

Julie smiles bitterly. “It’s OK,” she assures Alison. “It is not a problem.”

Alison is ready to believe that. Julie seems to find it more offensive than problematic. And it’s not as though they don’t have plenty of samples. She just has to wonder what it was about those few that made them special.

“You don’t get along with Dr. Dagnall?” Alison probes.

Julie’s not engaged enough to be annoyed or evasive. She stirs her coffee idly.

“We used to be friends,” she says and leaves it at that.

Pressing further would be a rookie mistake.

At lunch, it looks as though Ro and Signe are hitting it off, at least in that Ro seems relaxed and happy. Linda doesn’t show up and neither does Golda. Niv and Marit chat with each other amiably enough. It’s not unpleasant, but it’s deeply frustrating not to be able to understand anything that’s being said. Having two Americans present isn’t enough to make the Norwegians want to switch to English for small talk.

Julie’s a hard worker, and she doesn’t know if it’s a Norwegian thing or a working in Antarctica thing, but melancholy or not, Julie has good fundamentals in self-care. Midway through the afternoon, she calls a break to exercise. The rec room has a few free weights and some stationary bicycles. After that, they head out to replace the missing samples. That means going to three sites and a fair amount of walking because the snow cats can’t go everywhere. Alison has to admit that the casual, professional way that Julie pilots the strange little vehicle is weirdly professional. Julie’s delicate and pretty, yet ground and pragmatic. It’s a combination that Alison likes.

Even riding in the snow cat is cold, and visiting three sites eats up a lot of time. The others are halfway through dinner by the time they get back. Alison and Julie hurriedly shed their cold weather gear and head for the dining room for hot soup and weird, flat bread spread with meaty pastes and other things that Alison just eats because she’s that hungry.

Golda’s at dinner, but Alison stays the course and sticks to Julie. Even after eating, they’re both still frozen from their time outside. Julie heads for the showers, and Alison sticks with her. It’s not even her CCL agenda; warming up is just the natural thing to do. Alison’s too busy warming up under the water to even sneak a peek.

But Julie heads for the sauna next, and now Alison is warmed up. All of her. Body, mind, and CCL spirit.

“You don’t mind if I come with you, right?” she asks, and Julie pauses, damp and nude to look back over her shoulder. It’s a nice view.

She just makes a face that says ‘of course’ and shrugs.

It’s Alison’s first time seeing her naked. Her body’s pale and not athletic, just slim. Her figure would be strangely angelic and sexless if not for how aggressively her tiny nips stand out. She’s trimmed between her legs, but not landscaped. Alison can picture her just buzzing it with a protector. It’s peak Julie. Practical and not vain, but looks good anyway.

As Alison sits across from Julie in the sauna, she sees Julie’s look clearly. Maybe it’s the first time since they’ve met that Julie has been present in the moment. She looks at Alison nude, head to toe. D-cup breasts, modest belly rolls, and in true CCL style to be as attention-grabbing as possible, shaved bald between her legs. And naturally, Alison sits down in such a way that it’s obvious.

The look is brief. Julie doesn’t stare, ogle, or even react. She blinks a couple of times and goes back to looking normal, leaning back.

“Is this a normal day here?” Alison asks.

Julie nods with a sigh.

“Doesn’t seem so bad,” Alison goes on.

Julie nods again.

“You seem pretty tense though.” Before Julie can reply, Alison crosses the sauna and sits beside her. She twists and puts her hands on Julie’s smooth, damp shoulders.

The contact is innocent. Their thighs touching and Julie’s arm bumping lightly into Alison’s large, rather unavoidable boob. Nothing crazy.

Julie gives her a questioning look.

“I just mean you’re pretty stiff after such a chill day,” Alison says, knowing perfectly well that Julie might have trouble with that sentence in English. “Is it the generator stressing you out?”

Julie is too well-mannered to do anything but go with it. Going back to looking ahead, she shifts her shoulders slightly as Alison rubs them gently.

“No,” she says. “It’s OK.”

“I guess it’s stressful just being here. Antarctica is scary,” Alison goes on, getting a little firmer.

Julie sighs. She’s enjoying this. Her professional mindset is such that she doesn’t even suspect an ulterior motive. That makes Alison feel crude and a little terrible, but she’s not about to stop. Nothing wrong with an innocent shoulder rub and a little bonding between colleagues.

“More heavy metals in those samples than I would’ve expected,” she says.

Julie’s eyes open. She nods with another little sigh. “Yes.”

“Why’s there so much cadmium here?”

“That is not clear.”

“Do we have a seismologist? Has anyone looked at how tectonic activity could affect the concentration?”

“There is a seismology lab at Outpost 69,” Julie says, and there’s more life in that sentence that Alison has heard all day. It’s not like she’s just switched to being bubbly or something, but it’s noticeable. This is the trick to getting Julie to be present and in the moment: not to talk about the specifics of work, but the bigger picture. “I have already approached Golda to propose a joint project. The problem is connecting this to climate change.”

“If we could find a connection, that’s the first step to developing a model for how to locate potential rare metal deposits in ice that we otherwise wouldn’t find. I could write that grant in my sleep,” Alison says.

“That’s what I said,” Julie replies. “Oh! Mmm,” she closes her eyes and groans in satisfaction as Alison really digs her fingers in and massages her shoulders.

After the sauna, Julie politely thanks her for the shoulder rub, although the chat is what really made her evening. She excuses herself, and Alison has no doubt that she’ll lock herself in her room and work all night. It’s only seven o’clock.

Alison gets dressed and considers her next move. She has no reason to worry about Ro’s well-being, so Ro is on her own. The power’s back on, so they’re all sleeping in their own rooms.

Should Alison track down Golda?

Or prowl the Outpost to see what she can get into?